In Bed with the Earl Read online

  I’ve found you employment, poppet. I hate that this is the future that awaits you. I wish it was more. I want it to be more . . .

  And what her father had secured had been the most she ever could have hoped for as a bastard-born girl.

  He’d secured her employment. And he’d cared for her as much as any bankrupt nobleman might care for his by-blow daughter.

  And now she was on the cusp of losing it.

  Verity briefly closed her eyes and focused on taking a slow, steadying breath. And then another.

  When she opened them, she brought her shoulders back and marched into battle. She climbed the handful of steps, and her trembling fingers fumbled with the handle.

  Damning that shake, a sign of weakness, Verity yanked the door open and stormed inside.

  The din of the room continued; writers and editors clamoring to meet the day’s deadline didn’t so much as lift their heads from the tasks focusing them.

  Drawing the door closed behind her, Verity scanned the room, searching the neat rows of desks. With all the men at work and Miss Wright, the only other woman on staff, filling the inkwells, it may as well have been any other day. Only it wasn’t.

  “Excuse me, ma’am,” Miss Wright murmured, hurrying in front of Verity to reach her next inkwell at his desk.

  Rage narrowed Verity’s gaze into thin slits.

  Pen poised over his page, Mitchell Fairpoint glanced up from his papers. His midnight hair slicked back, his nose faintly too sharp, and his eyes too cunning, he’d the look of the Devil to him.

  “You bastard,” she hissed, flying across the room.

  That managed to penetrate the activity around the room. Shouts went up in echo to her cursing.

  Ignoring the pathetically offended sensibilities, she reserved all her fury and channeled it onto one person. Verity slammed her bag down hard on Fairpoint’s desk. “You stole from me.”

  His thin lips drew into a tight line as he smoothed his palms along his jacket. “How dare you!”

  It didn’t escape her notice that he remained seated, deliberately insolent, mocking. Her rage skyrocketed as she rested her hands on his immaculate desk and leaned forward. “I dare because it’s true,” she sneered. “You stole from me.”

  “I won’t have my honor impugned by one of your ilk, Miss Lovelace.”

  She wavered. For a moment, she thought he might be referring to her birthright. Which was impossible. Only Mr. Lowery Sr. knew. And he’d pledged that secret to her father.

  Fairpoint cried out, “Have a care!” Yanking a kerchief from his pocket, he wiped at the smattering of ink Miss Wright had spilled upon his fingers.

  “My apologies, sir,” the young woman murmured. Turning, she held Verity’s gaze for a moment. She gave an almost imperceptible nod of approval, then rushed off to see to the supplies of another desk.

  “Now, if you would go, Miss Lovelace. I don’t have the time for this.” He gave a flick of his fingers, like one brushing off a bothersome child. “I’ve my next story to see to.”

  My next story.

  His.

  As though the Lost Earl had ever been his.

  From across the desk Miss Wright gave Verity another look; that taciturn show of support bolstered her. For this injustice, Verity’s fight for respect and a place in this office, was about even more than just her and her security. It was also about the other woman who’d been working here for five years now and who also was denied a meaningful role. And though she’d never appreciated it before now, as long as she held her post here, Verity served as a reminder that women could do and be more in these professions men were so very determined to keep them out of.

  Rage darkened her vision, and, snarling, she swept his papers from his desk. “Bastard.”

  Cries went up, the indignant shouts muffled by the whir of blood rushing in her ears.

  “Miss Lovelace, that is enough.”

  That voice managed to penetrate her rage, and all at once, Verity became aware of several things: the pall of silence amongst the all-male staff now staring on in horror. And the annoyed figure standing in the middle of the offices. A figure who rarely visited. A man who left the daily affairs to his staff and swept in to grace them with his presence only when he wished to play at being the proprietor.

  And this would be the day he’d be here.

  Her stomach turned over. “Mr. Lowery,” she said in belated greeting, her voice hoarse.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she caught the smug stamp of Fairpoint’s features and curled her fingers into balls at her sides to stop from scraping her nails down the bastard’s face.

  “I’d speak with you in my office.” Not bothering to see if she followed, he started across the rooms.

  Verity scooped up her copy of The Londoner and her bag. She stomped around the desk and leaned close to Fairpoint. “We are not done here,” she whispered.

  “No,” he agreed with a snide grin. “I’d venture only one of us is.”

  Verity flared her eyes and made to lunge at the thief of her words and future.

  “Miss Lovelace,” Lowery snapped, his voice carrying from his offices, “I don’t like to be kept waiting.”

  “I suggest you be going, Miss Lovelace,” Mr. Fairpoint advised, setting the contents of his desk to rights. “I trust you’ve displeased Lowery enough this day.”

  She fisted her hands so tightly her jagged nails dug sharply into her callused palms, the rough skin dulling any pain. Verity reached the offices and lingered outside. Always be composed. Always be in control. Never show emotion. These were the expectations for any woman who wished to be considered seriously in this—or any—profession. Women were not permitted furies, even when the greatest of injustices had been committed. Even as men could slap one another across the faces with gloves and fingers and then meet on a dueling field to fight for their honor, women were expected to pour tea and be meek.

  Verity intended to fight for her job. Smoothing her features into a calm she didn’t feel, she clasped her hands before her so that her satchel swung as she moved. “Mr. Lowery,” she murmured, stepping inside.

  He opened his mouth.

  “I’d speak with you, please,” she continued before he could speak. Before he could sack her or call her out for her improper behavior on the floor. “Regarding my recent research and story on the Lost Earl.”

  “‘Lost Heir.’ That is how it was recorded by Fairpoint.”

  Verity set her jaw so hard her teeth ground audibly in the office and her temples throbbed. She forced her lips up into something that felt more grimace than smile. “Ah, yes.” She swept forward. “However, when I broke and wrote the story, I’d originally titled it as the Lost Earl because, well, the gentleman who’d been lost”—who still eluded the world—“was, in fact, an earl.”

  “‘Lost Heir’ sounds better,” Lowery said impatiently. “It’s the titles of the articles that sell.”

  Was it, though? She’d rather say it was the content . . . however, given the precariousness of her position and her future here, she’d not belabor the point. “May I?” she asked, gesturing to the chair across from him and claiming it before he could toss her out on her buttocks. “That story, as you know,” she began calmly, “was one you assigned to me.”

  Removing a cheroot from his jacket, Mr. Lowery touched the tip to the candle at the corner of his desk. Ignoring the way her nose twitched at that pungent odor, Verity fixed on the head editor of The Londoner as he puffed away on the noxious scrap. “And?”

  And? he asked.

  Verity placed her bag on the floor. “And Mr. Fairpoint stole my story. He put his name on it and presented it to you.” She set the damnable pages on his desk.

  Lowery didn’t so much as glance down. Taking another draw from his cheroot, he tipped the ashes into the silver tray on his desk. “Don’t care about some rivalry between you and Fairpoint.” A rivalry. That was how he saw it. And of course, Verity would be taken for some emotional female as op
posed to the wronged party she, in fact, was. “What I cared about, Miss Lovelace,” he went on, dropping his elbows on his desk, “was the story.”

  Her livelihood was crafted of words. As such, as Lowery raised his cheroot to his lips and took a slow, deliberate draw, her writer’s mind clung to two words: “cared” . . . and “was.” Both spoken in past tense. Panic sent her heart thudding in her chest. There’d be no righting the wrong done to her. Lowery, as he’d indicated, didn’t care. Only profit mattered.

  And therefore, as Lowery exhaled that plume of smoke in an uneven circle, she shifted her focus to fighting not about her stolen story but rather her future here. “I’ve an idea for a story on the Lost Earl . . . Heir.” She forced that hideous title out.

  That gave Lowery pause. “Oh?”

  Now that the world had the name of the missing nobleman, everyone craved details about his life and his whereabouts with the same ferocity with which English people craved their tea.

  She had his attention; now there was the matter of retaining it. “Everyone wants to know about him—”

  “Stop wasting my time with theatrics, Miss Lovelace,” he snapped, exhaling another puff of smoke from the side of his mouth. “Do you have information on the gentleman or not?”

  No. Not yet anyway. She sidestepped his question. “Each publication, we might put forward possibilities about where the gentleman has been—”

  “Possibilities?” His brow puckered, those five creases conveying his disapproval.

  Verity nodded enthusiastically. “Oh, yes.” There’d not been much Verity Lovelace hadn’t done in order to survive. “The possibilities. Can’t you just imagine them?”

  “No,” he said flatly. “It’s your job to tell me precisely what they are.”

  “Well.” Her mind raced as she searched around for the proper pitch. Bastard born, with a mum dead too soon, and left to navigate the world alone as a child, she’d learned right quick precisely what the world had in store for a young woman on her own. Though in fairness, with the passage of time, she’d come to witness firsthand that where women were concerned, the world didn’t discriminate by age. It was harsh, more often than not unfair, and ruthless to all women. As such, there was not much Verity wouldn’t do to hold on to her current post as a reporter with The Londoner. And that explained why, at that moment, she was making a desperate pitch of a nonstory.

  “Miss Lovelace,” he snapped impatiently.

  “We whet the world’s appetite with a thirst for more. Feed their craving until he is at last found.”

  Lowery paused. And then . . .

  “Ain’t a story.”

  Bloody hell.

  “Egregious offense, you coming in here, trying to have me publish something that ain’t a story. In fact, not sure which is more egregious . . . that, or your making a show of yourself. It is unbecoming of my staff.”

  Verity bit her tongue to keep from pointing out there’d been any number of egregious offenses that day: Fairpoint’s plagiarism. Lowery’s own use of the word “ain’t.” “Ah, but I disagree.”

  His high brow creased, his thin lips pulled tight at the corners.

  Oh, bloody hell. Verity spoke on a rush, in a bid to defuse his anger. “That is, I most respectfully disagree, sir.”

  “As long as you do it respectfully.”

  She brightened. Mayhap she’d unfairly misjudged the gentleman, after all. “Truly?”

  Mr. Lowery snorted. “Of course not ‘truly,’” he snapped. Stubbing his cheroot out on a silver tray, he grabbed the pages Verity had tossed down a handful of minutes ago. “This is a story.”

  “It was my story,” she could not keep from pointing out. The fury of having her work stolen redoubled in her breast.

  He hurled them across his cluttered desk.

  Verity hurriedly caught them to her chest, wrinkling those recently completed pages, the ink, still slightly damp, marring her fingertips.

  “Papers are costly to run, Miss Lovelace. With the taxes—”

  “I’m familiar with the state of taxation on newspapers,” she clipped out. In addition to having her work ripped asunder by a buffoon with poor grammar, she’d not be lectured on political events she was well versed in. “Quite so,” she added for good measure. It’s what accounted for the ruthlessness that had developed amongst reporters who were desperate to keep their assignments.

  Mr. Lowery peered down his lengthy nose with such condescension she ground her teeth together again. “If you know that, then you know I can’t keep you around if this is the manner of nonstory you’ve given me.” With that, he came out of his chair. “I told you your assignment here was contingent upon your delivering the Lost Heir story.”

  “And I did.” She could not keep the thread of desperation from her voice. Panic knocked around Verity’s chest as she followed her employer as he stalked off, but he began rummaging around the stacks of papers throughout the room. Muttering to himself while he searched for whatever it was he’d lost this time. Verity stopped on the other side of the table he currently searched. “It is a teaser, Mr. Lowery.” It was a desperate bid on her part. “Something to entice.”

  He snorted. “Do you expect me to buy into that idea?”

  Actually, since he’d newly taken over control of daily decisions from his father, she rather had. Either way, she knew men, and she knew their egos and, more specifically, how easily those egos were bruised. As such, she kept her lips wisely shut.

  “You knew your post was on the line.”

  “Yes, and I—”

  “And it’s been four months,” he snapped. “Four months of you writing some other nonsense while you bring me nothing on the story that I really want.”

  In fairness, it wasn’t solely the story Mr. Lowery wanted.

  It was the story the whole world craved: the tale of the Earl of Maxwell, who’d been kidnapped as a boy and thrust onto the streets of St. Giles while usurpers had availed themselves of a lavish lifestyle at the child’s expense.

  People had followed the downfall of those who’d robbed from the late earl, his wife, and his son. The only thing the world was missing now was the restored earl and an accounting of just how he’d survived these past years. What he’d done. And where he was . . .

  She tried to reason with Lowery. “The gentleman has proven elusive. He does not wish to be found.” It was undoubtedly why Lowery had given her the blasted assignment. He’d been attempting to sack her for months.

  “I don’t care what he wishes, Miss Lovelace. I expected you to find him. I expected you to interview him. Find out where he’s been. What he’s done. And publish that story in our damned paper.”

  Expected . . . which signified the past tense and a telltale mark of her future here. And when she lost her employment here . . . what then?

  What of Livvie’s future?

  Bertha’s?

  Our futures, together.

  As if watching the life of another play out before her, she followed Mr. Lowery as he gathered up an armful of papers and beat a path to the door.

  And when he stepped through it, then all hope would be lost. She’d no longer be Verity Lovelace, a woman with a respectable position and secure employment. She’d become an unemployed, unmarried, on-her-own female, prey to the whims and cruelties of heartless men, and with a younger sister to care for. And a rent she could not pay.

  Verity came whirring back to the moment.

  “Mr. Lowery,” she cried out, rushing after him. Ignoring the triumphant smile worn by Fairpoint, Verity gripped her employer by the arm. She ignored the outraged glint in his eyes as he took in her bold fingers. Panic lapped at the corner of her senses. “Please.” There were many too proud to beg. Verity, however, did not do this for herself alone but rather another, and it was that which made her able to swallow her pride and plead for her future. “I need this post.”

  Shrugging off her touch, he proceeded over to his cloak and shrugged into it. “And I needed this story.” M
r. Lowery gathered several files and stuffed them inside a leather bag. And with that, he disappeared through the door.

  Yes, a struggling paper needed every advantage, and Lowery had pinned the hopes for his paper’s rise to its former greatness upon that story.

  Verity sprinted after him, and again inserted herself into his path. “Another week,” she appealed, all but shouting through the din of the room.

  He wound his way around her, making for the entrance. “And what do you think a week will do, given that it’s been months?”

  Hope. It was what had fueled her and enabled her to survive the whole of her existence.

  Mr. Lowery opened the door, and a sharp blast of wind whipped through.

  “We’re done, Miss Lovelace,” he said, drawing his gloves on.

  Verity followed him outside. The previously bustling streets were now eerily quiet because of the impending storm reflected in the thick black clouds rolling overhead. That symbol of darkness and gloom . . . It is an omen . . . She thrust aside the tingling of unease working along her spine. “I’ve made progress,” she called after him. Lies.

  And as he seemingly knew it, he continued on to the waiting carriage.

  Verity bit the inside of her cheek, and then called, “I’ve determined his whereabouts.” Another blast of wind carried those words, stretching their echo.

  That managed the otherwise impossible until now: Mr. Lowery stopped, one foot poised inside the carriage.

  For one agonizing moment, she believed he’d climb inside that black barouche, ride off, and leave her hopeless once more.

  Mr. Lowery stepped down and faced her. “You have three minutes, Miss Lovelace.”

  Gathering up her skirts, Verity sprinted down the handful of steps and joined him.

  “I’ve uncovered some of the details you’ve sought.”

  “You?”

  She nodded.

  “You know where he lives?” And by the suspicion coating that inquiry, he was rich in doubt.

  She’d not a damned clue. Alas, the lies came easily when one was desperate enough. “I do.”

  Rubbing his gloved palms together, Mr. Lowery contemplated her.